Author: Matthew M. Peek, Military Collection Archivist
Charles Henry Warren was born on October 14, 1895, in the town of Lenoir in Caldwell County, North Carolina, to Joseph L. and Mary Emma Prestwood Warren. Charles’ father Joseph worked as a sawyer in the furniture industry by 1900. By 1910, Joseph Warren had become a laborer in a furniture shop in Caldwell County, North Carolina.
Charles Warren enlisted in the U.S. Army at Fort Thomas, Kentucky, on May 14, 1917, for service in World War I. Warren would serve in the Medical Detachment, 18th Field Artillery. Warren reached the rank of private first class on September 7, 1917. He served overseas in Europe during the war from April 22, 1918, to August 20, 1919, and was honorably discharged on September 2, 1919.
After the war, Charles Warren returned home to live with his parents and the rest of his family in Caldwell County. Warren would marry Nora Estella Beach on June 25, 1921, in Columbus County, N.C. By 1930, Charles Warrren was working as a traveling agent for the North Carolina Department of Education, and was living with his wife in Raleigh, N.C.
By 1938, Warren was the Supervisor for Vocational Rehabilitation at the North Carolina Board of Vocational Education. He would go on to become the State Director of the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation by 1964. Charles H. Warren died on November 29, 1967, in Raleigh, N.C, and was buried in Montlawn Memorial Park in the same city.
To learn more about Charles Warren’s WWI service, check out the Charles H. Warren Papers (WWI 53) held in the WWI Papers of the Military Collection at the State Archives of North Carolina in Raleigh, N.C.
This blog post is part of the State Archives of North Carolina’s World War I Social Media Project, an effort to bring original WWI archival materials to the public through the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources’ (NCDNCR) various social media platforms, in order to increase access to the items during the WWI centennial celebration by the state of North Carolina.
Between February 2017 and June 2019, the State Archives of North Carolina will be posting blog articles, Facebook posts, and Twitter posts, featuring WWI archival materials which are posted on the exact 100th anniversary of their creation during the war. Blog posts will feature interpretations of the content of WWI documents, photographs, diary entries, posters, and other records, including scans of the original archival materials, held by the State Archives of North Carolina, and will be featured in NCDNCR’s WWI centennial blog.